RULERS
was my dinosaur movie. I wanted to do a dinosaur
horror movie and see if we could pull off the
dino effects. I think we can, even on a small
budget. I made the mistake of shifting back to
film from video. I love film and its driving me
crazy I can't afford to shoot in that medium at
the moment (I hope it changes soon).
My
father, Warren Disbrow SR, is amazing. When he
was a kid when you bought a model airplane kit
it was nothing like the highky detailed, totally
prepared plastic castings you just have to glue
together. Instead you got blocks of wood,
directions and patterns to trace on the wood to
do it for yourself from scratch! Now that's REAL
model making!
Anyhow,
my father made the full size dinosaur puppets
out of aluminum like huge toys with motor driven
legs and cable controlled neck, head and jaw
movements. He also got the eyes working! My
contribution was to draw on several tapped
together poster board the shape I wanted them to
be so he could bend the metal to it. I also
sculpted dinosaur skin and the heads and eyes.
My skin was used to cover his beautiful metal
dino skeletons.
We
shot Super 16. Lots of movies are shot on Super
16 these days because the film stock is so damn
sharp and free of grain its tough to tell Super
16 from standard 35mm anymore. I own all my own
film equipment so it came down to the raw film
stock and lab work. But to small independent
filmmakers those costs are an problem.
I
started shooting and we shot for a number of
weeks before I pulled the plug on the movie. It
was the only time I can remember I didn't
complete something i started. RULERS would have
been finished if I had shot in on video, but
instead I ended up with maybe 15 minutes of
acting and action scenes featuring the
dinosaurs.
All
is not lost. I plan on shopping the footage and
raising the money to make RULERS properly.
though its been many years since I shot footage
on RULERS, we still have the aluminum dino full
size toys and I still have all the molds to pour
fresh skin and heads... did I mention sharp
teeth too?
The
dinosuar heads on this page are two of the ones
I sculpted. I'll post more pictures ASAP of the
full 20 foot long, 12 foot high beasties we
tinkered together. The speed of the leg movement
was adjustable and they ran on rails from above
so they could chase someone across a lawn in
reality, no CGI stuff. They can interact
physically with the same environment as the
fleeing actors. We also did smaller Raptor size
Dino puppets too and they are still with us too
today.
One
of the smaller dinosuars is in very good
condition and I used it in SCARLET MOON. You can
see a picture of it on the SCARLET MOON page.
(to
be continued)
